The Truth We Won't Admit: Drinking Is Healthy
psmag.com
psmag.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_Peele#Funding
This article makes it sound like there are no health concerns with regular drinking.
Even inquiries into research can contain bias. But your pithy attitude is noted.
Noted, but he's likely not a shill for Big Booze.
The company could find absolutely no way to tell the two populations apart prior to administering the pill. Most critically, once the 10% took the pill for a short period of time, they almost always ended up suffering the adverse effects.
Do you think the FDA would approve that pill? Do you think any sane doctor would prescribe that pill to his/her patients?
So absolutely, if you are sure you don't have any alcoholic tendencies (and if you have to ask, you aren't sure), then drink a glass or two of red wine a day (depending on your body mass). It will almost certainly improve your cardiovascular health.
But don't expect medical or public health professionals to go singing its praises from the rooftops to a partially at-risk population.
Benzos, amphetamines, SSRIs, etc etc. There are plenty of pills both approved and prescribed that have a worse effect and/or affect a higher percentage of people.
And actually, long-term opiate abuse is much less likely to result in organ failure and other chronic health conditions than alcohol is.
That's not the case with benzos or amphetamines, but I don't see anyone this side of Hunter S. Thomson arguing that more people should take amphetamines.
Finally, can you explain what you mean by "and/or affect a higher percentage of people"? You mean more people take SSRIs than abuse alcohol? I don't understand what you're suggesting.
I think the previous posters' point was that becoming dependent on opiates happens more often than dependency on alcohol. I agree -- except in cases where there is genetic predisposition to alcoholism.
While long term use of opiates isn't in itself harmful, long term abuse carries a high risk of overdose due to tolerance.
By "and/or affect a higher percentage of people", I mean that a higher percentage of people who take certain prescribed substances (like amphetamines or opioids) are at risk for addiction to those substances than those who drink alcohol.[6]
Edit: All of which is ultimately irrelevant, as your argument was "Do you think the FDA would approve that pill? Do you think any sane doctor would prescribe that pill to his/her patients?" and we both seem to agree that pills that have fewer benefits and just as bad if not worse consequences that your hypothetical drug are both approved by the FDA and prescribed by doctors.
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22786464
[2] http://www.gwlr.org/2014/02/03/cohen-2/
[3] http://www.northjersey.com/news/north-jersey-pill-mills-cash...
[4] http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/after-pil...
[5] http://fox8.com/2013/04/18/doctor-pleads-guilty-to-running-p...
[6] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_ass...
Despite that, a huge numbers of doctors (in many countries around the world) do administer it. Why? Because it makes money for the pharmaceutical industry.
So the answer: Yes, the FDA will approve that magical pill.
*[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotretinoin#Adverse_effects
Yes, I know all about Isotretinoin. I took 3 courses of it as a teenager with severe, painful scarring acne. It improved my life a great deal, both from a health and social perspective.
Want to make any more assumptions about me?
I think it's perfectly acceptable to assume someone may not know about something when it may heavily affect their argument and they haven't mentioned it.
I read it as trying to be informative, not condescending. More than a few upvotes on my response leads me to believe others interpreted it similarly. Maybe the subject is charged enough for you to create a bias for how you interpreted the response?
Sure, it's possible. In fact, I'd say it's definite. I would never deny that I'm biased because of my life experiences with isotretinoin (which I knew as Accutane).
But by the same token, csomar is equally biased because of his/her negative life experiences with isotreninoin, as he mentions elsewhere [1].
And I don't know how else to interpret "You may want to do a little research" except as condescension. I guess if csomar is not a native English speaker, it's possible that's not how it was intended. But no native English speaker would write a statement like that without the desire to be arrogant, condescending and superior.
So the smart person will discount what we're both saying and do his/her own research, paying particular attention to published peer-reviewed research by neutral researchers.
But I think a thoughtful person with some numeric literacy will quickly see that the issue is not as black/white as csomar has painted it.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8280603
EDIT: I've already spent far too much time on this, so I can't respond to anymore replies. If someone makes a particularly good point against me, then I concede the argument.
I'm not saying severe acne or associated scaring can't cause mental health issues, but the list of side effects includes suicidal ideation, suicide, birth defects (it's a teratogen), depression (notably at the rate of between one in 1k and one in 10k), etc. This list [1] is quite extensive, and I'm glad I didn't have to sit on the fda council that decided this list of side effects was ok in a drug that, after all, just prevents some cosmetic scaring.
The red wine thing is bullshit, as mentioned in the article. Wine and beer actually have problematic amounts of estrogen. If you're going to drink, quality clear spirits are best.
If there's anything special about red wine it's probably the small dose of salicylate. Might as well just take a baby aspirin if you buy into that.
I don't buy the idea that alcohol itself is particularly biologically medicinal; I think the benefits are entirely by way of psycho-social well being. At a simple biological level alcohol, at even pretty high amounts, is merely benign. That said, problems like fatty liver disease appear to be often be the result of the interaction between alcohol metabolism and stored polyunsaturated fats. So if you're going to drink a lot, eat a low PUFA diet.
This is a quite common attitude in northern Europe as well, or at least in the Nordic countries. In Denmark it's highly suspicious to drink alcohol on a weekday (especially at lunch), unless it's a holiday, and will lead people to worry about alcoholism. But it's completely normal to have 6+ drinks on a weekend evening. Maybe even every weekend evening. You can binge-drink as much as you want, as long as it's only Fri-Sat (sometimes Thu). In fact it's even sort of expected; not doing so might raise suspicions that you're some kind of weird religious person (Mormon? Muslim?). Not sure how this arose, but it seems to be the cultural norm: 14 drinks/wk spread out as 1 each with lunch/dinner every day is seen as alcoholic, but the same 14 drinks/wk spread out as 7 each on Fri/Sat evenings is culturally normal. Whereas in southern Europe the opposite is more often true, at least traditionally, with weekend binge-drinking seen as more questionable than moderate daily drinking.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addict...
Addiction often leads to physical dependence, but you can for example be a light smoker that's addicted to nicotine. However, you generally need to be a fairly heavy smoker before withdraw symptoms show up when you stop. On the other hand people without addiction to caffeine will often display withdrawal symptoms if they stop. This is vary common in people who enjoy soda or tea, but don't use it to stay adjust alertness.
I'm sorry, but the author drastically overstates the certainty of our current knowledge. Every single piece of evidence he marshals is a study, not an experiment, so who knows what the confounding factors are. And even worse, the studies necessarily depend on self-reported alcohol consumption, which, as any doctor knows, is basically just a bunch of lies.
There's a huge history of scientific consensuses being wrong, particularly surrounding health in the last 30 years. I think we should be cautious about jumping to conclusions of what these studies actually mean. That he calls his hypothesis "irrefutable" is downright appalling.
Heh, what? Exhibit A: Russia. I'm all for copious drinking, but that's comedy.
http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...
If it is actually responsible for preventable deaths, why are they not being prevented? Because they are probably very, very hard to actually prevent. Even prohibition did little to reduce death rates and we already arrest 1.5 million people in the US each year for driving under the influence. What would work? I suggest the prevention of these deaths will have little to do with alcohol and more to do with healthcare and perhaps automobile design.
Because alcohol is the cause. I don't know what are you trying to say.
If something is preventable that means it can be prevented. Right? So why is it not be prevented? Understand? By this flawed logic aren't all murders and suicides also preventable? This "preventable" label is bullshit.
I suggest that the vast majority these "alcohol related deaths" cannot be prevented thought additional controls on alcohol. We tried prohibition - didn't help. We arrest 1.5 million people every year - still these death persist. Do you have some suggestions? I gave a few above.
France banned alcohol advertising; introduced minimum pricing and introduced stricter drink drive limits. They've seen reductions in deaths from cirrhosis.
England does not have minimum pricing[1]; does have alcohol advertising, and has seen significant increases in deaths from cirrhosis.
[1] this was a shoddy U-Turn, where evidence based choice was rejected based on lies pushed by the alcohol industry. Minimum unit pricing of 50 pence per unit would affect very few drinks. (One unit of alcohol is 10 ml of alcohol, so you multiply the amount of drink by the ABV then divide by 1000. 175 ml * 13.5 / 1000 is about 2.4 units.)
The author is talking about health benefits.
My exposure to violent crime and drink driving (That I aren't already exposed too) is easy to manage if I was to start drinking.
My question is, why does alcohol have these health benefits? Some earlier work pointed to resveratrol in wine, but there is a lot of doubt that's been cast on that hypothesis and the general benefits of alcohol seem to be agnostic regarding the particular form of beverage.
Therefore, other factors beyond the consumption itself can't be ruled out, such as differences in education, religious beliefs, non-religious beliefs, open-mindedness, etc.
Trying to answer the question of why alcohol clinically has the effects that it does is a hard battle. The molecule has wide-ranging effects, it doesn't by any means hit any particular receptor. It goes wherever water goes in the body and disrupts every cell membrane in the body, among other effects.
And that's if the health benefits have anything to do with the clinical effects at all.
http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/Controversies/Drinking-Alcoh...
Instead of taking up alcohol, consider hitting those gums with an electric toothbrush at least once a day.
Likely, individuals that have/do things that prevent gingivitis, like affording a dentist, also have/do things that prevent heart disease, like affording blood pressure medications.
The strawman of 'association and causation' is introduced by you. Congratulations on knocking it down!
I don't think gingivitis is caused by bacteria per se. Cavities and gingivitis manifest as a consequence of lousy overall health and problems such as mineral deficiencies, not a lack of listerine. The phrase "look a gift horse in the mouth" exists because lousy teeth indicate a bunch of other health problems. It's not about horse oral hygiene.
Whether the advice is best for society or not doesn't matter, they are lying to you. This concerns me a lot.
I think it's less common with cigarettes now for various reasons. The social stigma, the fact that they are much more convenient, and that they deliver their nicotine "hit" much faster, I would imagine makes them more addictive.
A reduced risk for Parkinson's disease (PD) among cigarette smokers has been observed consistently during the past 30 years. Recent evidence suggests that caffeine may also be protective. Findings are presented regarding associations of PD with smoking, caffeine intake, and alcohol consumption from a case-control study conducted in western Washington State in 1992–2000.
Definitely not "smoking", and not about preventing parkinson's. But it is one study that shows nicotine helps with some aspects of the disease.